Chapter 7 #4
“Tease? M’lady, you put the goods right on the table! You’re treacherous and disloyal, but the cards are played, and you’re in my power. Like it or not. I even tried to warn you not to bargain, that the odds were against you. I told you how things would be, I gave you every chance—”
“I haven’t had a fair chance all evening!”
“That’s what happens when you set out to betray the king.”
“You’re not the king!”
“But you are in my power, and that’s the way it is,” he told her, thrusting her from him.
“What can any of this mean to you?” she cried in exasperation, warning herself that she must keep her distance from him. “The king sleeps, he cannot be bothered with me, so what can any of this matter—”
“It matters. And the king may be sleeping, but he is still waiting to see me. Regarding you. So, if you’ll excuse me …”
He moved past her toward the door. She stared after him, tears stinging her eyes.
She wanted to race after him and pummel him again, but she clenched her fists at her sides, afraid she had already dangerously tested his temper; and she didn’t want him touching her in return.
“Damn you!” she cried out with passionate loathing. “Damn you a thousand times over!”
He ignored her, and despite all her instinctive warnings and simple logic, she ran after him, clenched fists raised. She landed no blows, for he caught her wrists again, and held them tightly, generous lips tightly clenched into a grim line as he stared down at her.
She looked up at him searchingly. “Why are you doing this to me? Who are you?”
He paused, arching a brow to her, a deep frown burrowed into his brow.
Then he suddenly smiled, released her wrists, and bowed to her deeply in a complete mockery of the courteous gesture.
“Of course, how forgetful of me, we’ve not formally met.
Strange, isn’t it? I mean, we are beginning to know one another, aren’t we?
But as to your question, well, I am he, my lady.
That awful man to whom you are to be given, my lady.
That wretched, decaying, decrepit, old Norman, Waryk de Graham.
However, my father was not a Norman, though there might have been some Norman blood—even Viking—in his veins.
My mother was from one of the oldest families in the Lowlands.
So you see, I’m not a wretched decaying old Norman at all, but a wretched decaying not-terribly-old Scotsman.
Now, if you’ll excuse me …? I really must see the king.
He has been deeply concerned regarding your whereabouts. ”
Oh, God. She’d never even suspected …
She was so stunned and dismayed that for once that evening she couldn’t move or speak.
He turned and opened the door to exit the room, and still she couldn’t move. She stood staring after him, shocked and shivering, her mouth formed into an O.
Then she found life. “Wait!” she breathed.
No. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t. After all that had passed between them. She should have known. She should have sensed, but it couldn’t be, how horrible, please God, he was lying, it was a jest, a cruel jest …
“Wait!” she cried again, flying after him this time.
“What?” he asked sharply, pausing and turning back.
She stopped just inches before him, heart pounding, her breath coming in gasps. “You’re not—you can’t be. Please, don’t do this to me. Tell me … the truth. You’re taunting me again in revenge—”
He stepped back to her, capturing her chin before she could move away, his hold so strong she couldn’t possibly wrench free from him.
“There may be many things I would do for revenge, m’lady.
But this is not one of them. I am Waryk, Laird de Graham, known as the lion, or Laird Lion.
And you are about to be my wife. You’re not fond of the situation—so you’ve advised me, and I must admit, I believe you, you’ve made your feelings incredibly clear.
But I must tell you, you were certainly not my choice either, lady.
And now that we’ve met, I can assure you that I find you to be headstrong, wayward, immature—and amazingly foolish!
But the die is cast, and you will be my wife, and if you want war, I’ve spent my life in battle.
Few men are better fighters. Do you understand? ”
She wrenched her jaw free from the bite of his fingers at last, frightened and dismayed to the depths of her soul. “I’ll see you in hell!” she whispered.
He smiled. “So you shall. If that’s as you would have it, I can promise you that our marriage will be hell.”
He turned again to leave her. She was still shaking. She shouldn’t have spoken as she had. Perhaps there was still hope of ending it all if he wanted the marriage no more than she did.
“Laird Lion, wait—”
The door slammed in her face.
“Wait!” she pleaded again.
The only answer she received was the sound of a heavy bolt sliding into place with a thud.
“Please!” she whispered, leaning her head and hands against the door. But her plea had come far too late.
He was gone.
And she was damned.